Stephan: This is one of those stories that seems to be about one thing, but is really most importantly about a trend emerging. This report doesn't even mention how very strange it is for vintners to be growing sparkling wine grapes in England. They are also growing olives in Southern England. Both manifestations of climate change that don't even seem to register as such.
Thanks to Rob Swigart.
British Airways has become the first airline to serve English sparkling wine Рit has selected Balfour Brut Ros̩ 2007 for first class customers.
The 2007 vintage, made from Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier, is being released exclusively for British Airways.
Richard Balfour-Lynn, owner of the 400-acre Hush Heath Estate in Kent, where the sparkling wine is produced, said: ‘BA has borne out my belief that we can produce a top quality sparkling Rosé to match up to the top French Champagne houses.’
Hush Heath Estate’s new winery opened on June 13.
Lynn McClelland, head of catering at BA, said: ‘We are proud to be the first airline to offer English sparkling wine to our customers by serving the Balfour Brut Rosé.
‘By giving our British and international customers an exclusive taste of the best of Britain, we are putting English winemaking firmly on the map.’
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Stephan: Our culture is going to change either proactively, with wellness in both its smallest and largest dimensions as first priority, or we are going to go through a diminished and humiliating period. The evidence just piles up.
The recovery may be rocky at the moment, but when it picks up steam, confidence will increase, jobs will return and the Great Recession will become an unpleasant memory (and perhaps a useful subject from which to draw policy lessons).
More from BNet.com:
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Saturday, June 25th, 2011
JOSHUA HOLLAND, - ALterNet
Stephan: The rest of the world is developing the view that the U.S. is basically a muscle bound bully. As this report notes: 'it's worth noting that in a 2010 poll of citizens in 27 countries, 53 percent of respondents said the EU had a positive influence on the world, while 46 percent felt the same about the United States.'
But, more than that, whenever I research this trend I am always struck with what could have been done if we had chosen to make ourselves leaders in all the areas that really matter: healthcare, education, environmental remediation, technological innovation, infrastructure, childcare, and elder care.
Last week, during his final European visit before retiring, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates blasted our NATO allies for spending too little on their militaries.
‘The blunt reality,
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Saturday, June 25th, 2011
KEITH BRADSHER, - The New York Times
Stephan: This is what China has been doing with its money while we have been squandering ours in endless war. American trains average 59 miles per hour, and passenger service is functionally nearly impossible over long distances.
CHANGSHA, China — Even as China prepares to open bullet train service from Beijing to Shanghai by July 1, this nation’s steadily expanding high-speed rail network is being pilloried on a scale rare among Chinese citizens and news media.
Complaints include the system’s high costs and pricey fares, the quality of construction and the allegation of self-dealing by a rail minister who was fired earlier this year on corruption grounds.
But often overlooked, amid all the controversy, are the very real economic benefits that the world’s most advanced fast rail system is bringing to China - and the competitive challenges it poses for the United States and Europe.
Just as building the interstate highway system a half-century ago made modern, national commerce more feasible in the United States, China’s ambitious rail rollout is helping integrate the economy of this sprawling, populous nation - though on a much faster construction timetable and at significantly higher travel speeds than anything envisioned by the Eisenhower administration.
Work crews of as many as 100,000 people per line have built about half of the 10,000-mile network in just six years, in many cases ahead of schedule - including the Beijing-to-Shanghai line that was not originally expected to open until […]
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Saturday, June 25th, 2011
CAROL CLARK, - Emory University
Stephan: Here we have another comfortable assumption -- the initiation of farming made us healthier -- overturned by modern research.
When populations around the globe started turning to agriculture around 10,000 years ago, regardless of their locations and type of crops, a similar trend occurred: The height and health of the people declined.
‘This broad and consistent pattern holds up when you look at standardized studies of whole skeletons in populations,
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